Houston Organizations Collaborate to Learn About PrEP

Charlene A. Flash, M.D., Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine and a physician who treats patients at Thomas Street Health Center

Like the rest of Black America, Houston has a PrEP problem.

The introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, as a method of preventing HIV has ushered in a new era of hope that the end of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is near.

But while PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV by 96 percent, 85 percent of its current users in the United States are White men. With statistics as lopsided as this, Black America is in danger of being left behind.

To help ensure that doesn't happen and to make sure Houston has all the resources it needs to prevent HIV, the Black AIDS Institute recently held a learning collaborative, a nine- to 18-month interactive process designed to increase the delivery of PrEP services to the area's Black communities.

Answering a Community Need

The Black AIDS Institute PrEP Learning Collaborative is an educational program designed to help health departments, clinical providers, AIDS service organizations and community-based organizations deliver PrEP services to Black communities more effectively. Among the goals of the program:

· Increasing awareness and knowledge of PrEP;

· Increasing utilization of PrEP among high-risk HIV-negative individuals;

· Increasing ways to help individuals pay for PrEP;

· Increasing strategic partnerships among local organizations delivering PrEP to Black communities.

The organizations that took part in the Houston collaborative were AIDS Foundation Houston, Bee Busy Wellness Center and Bee Busy Inc., Central Care Integrated Health Services, the Houston Health Department, the Montrose Center and Thomas Street Health Center. As part of the collaborative, participants met three times between November 2016 and June 2017 and shared ideas and best practices.

One of the goals the program fulfilled was to help the organizations coordinate their systems and processes so that when at-risk men and women test negative, they will be referred to get PrEP immediately.

"The Houston PrEP collaborative ended with the health department agreeing to create a referral tool that can be adopted by all of the PrEP providers," says Leisha McKinley-Beach, an HIV program administrator for the Institute's PrEP Learning Collaborative. "It's always rewarding when providers can come together and agree on a common goal that is larger than the individual organization."

Going Beyond Support

In addition to gaining a network of support, participants learned strategies for implementing better processes and systems for delivering PrEP. Some even found that the program helped them take their services to the next level.

"Our prevention program has been up and running for quite some time," says Charlene A. Flash, M.D., assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine and a physician who treats patients at Thomas Street Health Center. "Nonetheless, our experience working with the Black AIDS Institute learning collaborative was a fruitful one. The process of developing an improvement plan challenged our organization to review our procedures and to standardize our processes. This experience has brought our existing HIV Prevention Program [at Thomas Street] to the next level as we move out of an implementation phase to one of sustainability and maintenance."

The program also provided guidance on how organizations can best communicate with members of the community about PrEP so that they not only understand its benefits but also feel comfortable accessing PrEP in a stigma-free space.

"The Black AIDS Institute has been providing an essential service throughout the Houston community," says Marlene McNeese-Ward, bureau chief of the Houston Department of Health and Human Services, HIV/STD Prevention. "Through the PrEP Learning Collaborative, [the Black AIDS Institute] created a safe space for local partner organizations to learn effective methods to ensure Houstonians make informed decisions about whether PrEP is an appropriate HIV prevention option for themselves."

Overall, the collaborative was deemed a success as participants learned from one another and took their partnerships to another level through sharing and dedication to a common goal.

"It was really gratifying to have a diverse set of workforce experiences for organizations that serve different client populations, and to facilitate the flow of creativity and best practices," says Fatima Hyacinthe, mobilization coordinator for the Black AIDS Institute.

Tamara E. Holmes is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who writes about health, wealth and personal growth.